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Inequality of Opportunity in Brazil

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Author Info
Francois Bourguignon (World Bank, Washington)
Francisco H.B. Ferreira () (World Bank, Washington)
Marta Menéndez (Université Paris Dauphine)

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Abstract

This paper proposes a method to decompose earnings inequality into a component due to unequal opportunities and a residual term. Drawing on the distinction between ‘circumstance’ and ‘effort’ variables in John Roemer’s work on equality of opportunity, we associate inequality of opportunities with the inequality attributable to circumstances which lie beyond the control of the individual – such as her family background, her race and the region where she was born. We interpret the decomposition as establishing a lower bound on the contribution of opportunities to earnings inequality. We further decompose the effect of opportunities into a direct effect on earnings and an indirect component which works through the “effort” variables. The decomposition is applied to the distributions of male and female earnings in Brazil, in 1996. While the residual term is large, observed circumstances nevertheless account for around a quarter of the value of the Theil index. Parental education is by far the most important circumstance affecting earnings, dwarfing the effects of race and place of birth.

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Publisher Info
Paper provided by Ibero-America Institute for Economic Research in its series Ibero America Institute for Econ. Research (IAI) Discussion Papers with number 133.

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Length: 45 pages
Date of creation: 18 Nov 2005
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Handle: RePEc:got:iaidps:133

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Related research
Keywords: Inequality of opportunity; earnings inequality; intergenerational mobility;

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
J62 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, and Vacancies - - - Job, Occupational and Intergenerational Mobility; Promotion

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References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Ferreira, Francisco H. G. & Lanjouw, Peter & Neri, Marcelo Cortes, 2002. "A Robust Poverty Profile for Brazil Using Multiple Data Sources," Economics Working Papers (Ensaios Economicos da EPGE) 444, Graduate School of Economics, Getulio Vargas Foundation (Brazil). [Downloadable!]
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  2. Griliches, Zvi & Mason, William M, 1972. "Education, Income, and Ability," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 80(3), pages S74-S103, Part II, . [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Piketty, Thomas, 1995. "Social Mobility and Redistributive Politics," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 110(3), pages 551-84, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  4. Deaton, Angus & Paxson, Christina, 1994. "Intertemporal Choice and Inequality," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 102(3), pages 437-67, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  5. Samuel Bowles & Herbert Gintis, 2002. "The Inheritance of Inequality," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 16(3), pages 3-30, Summer. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Vito Peragine, 2004. "Ranking Income Distributions According to Equality of Opportunity," Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer, vol. 2(1), pages 11-30, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Ferreira, Francisco H. G. & Paes de Barrios, Ricardo, 1999. "The slippery slope : explaining the increase in extreme poverty in urban Brazil, 1976-96," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2210, The World Bank. [Downloadable!]
  8. Casey B. Mulligan, 1999. "Galton versus the Human Capital Approach to Inheritance," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(S6), pages S184-S224, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. Lam, David & Schoeni, Robert F, 1993. "Effects of Family Background on Earnings and Returns to Schooling: Evidence from Brazil," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 101(4), pages 710-40, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  10. Solon, Gary, 1992. "Intergenerational Income Mobility in the United States," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(3), pages 393-408, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  11. Charles F. Manski & John V. Pepper, 2000. "Monotone Instrumental Variables, with an Application to the Returns to Schooling," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 68(4), pages 997-1012, July.
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  12. Julian R. Betts & John E. Roemer, . "Equalizing educational opportunity through educational finance reform," Department of Economics 99-8, California Davis - Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
  13. Solon, Gary, 1999. "Intergenerational mobility in the labor market," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 29, pages 1761-1800 Elsevier. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  14. Hanushek, Eric A, 1986. "The Economics of Schooling: Production and Efficiency in Public Schools," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 24(3), pages 1141-77, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  15. Bowles, Samuel, 1972. "Schooling and Inequality from Generation to Generation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 80(3), pages S219-S51, Part II, . [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  16. Behrman, Jere R & Birdsall, Nancy, 1983. "The Quality of Schooling: Quantity Alone is Misleading," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 73(5), pages 928-46, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  17. Jere R. Behrman & Mark R. Rosenzweig, 2002. "Does Increasing Women's Schooling Raise the Schooling of the Next Generation?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(1), pages 323-334, March. [Downloadable!]
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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Javier Núñez & Andrea Tartakowsky, 2007. "Inequality of outcomes vs. inequality of opportunities in a developing country. An exploratory analysis for Chile," Estudios de Economia, University of Chile, Department of Economics, vol. 34(2 Year 20), pages 185-202, December. [Downloadable!]
  2. Ferreira , Francisco H. G. & Gignoux, Jeremie, 2008. "The measurement of inequality of opportunity : theory and an application to Latin America," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4659, The World Bank. [Downloadable!]
  3. Pedro Rosa Dias, 2009. "Inequality of opportunity in health: evidence from a UK cohort study," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(9), pages 1057-1074. [Downloadable!]
  4. Trannoy, A & Tubeuf, S & Jusot, F & Devaux, M, 2008. "Inequality in Opportunities in Health in France: A first pass," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 08/24, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York. [Downloadable!]
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